


got your life laid on my floor

by getmean



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, References to Drugs, Trans Male Character, the best two mutuals :~)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-20 20:04:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20681150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: The last time they’d spoken Shelton had slipped his thumb under the just-slightly-too-high-maybe-on-purpose-but-probably-not hem of Eugene’s shrunken t-shirt, and traced the jut of his hipbone justsothat Eugene had felt pink cheeked and drunk from the ghost of the sensation for days after.





	1. Chapter 1

Move-in day. The streets are choked with SUVs and minivans, Mom cars as far as the eye can see, and the grounds of the campus are teeming with the life spilling out of them. Parents, kids; eighteen and spotty-faced, nervous, being chivvied along by their parents as they carry garbage bags of all their belongings into the institution-like buildings that they’ll call home for the next two semesters of their life. Eugene braces his hip against the frame of the window and ducks his head a little to see better, the window sash blocking the road from view very slightly. He’d never been part of the almost ritualistic culture of move-in day, he’d never had to make awkward smalltalk with the stranger who he’d be sharing the room with for the next year, while his mother brought in far more things than he’d ever need. Plastic wrapped mattress, in case you pissed yourself, or died, or both. Bickering over a microwave, sharing a bathroom with a couple dozen other guys, inevitably not getting along with your roommate because you’re quiet and awkward and gay and he’s everything but. Eugene can’t say he feels he missed out.

No, he didn’t get a move-in day, or his mother fussing over the state of his dorm bedroom, or anything like that. His parents had wanted him to go to the university his brother had gone to, and his father and grandfather before that. The idea of staying in the South had been unpleasant, and attending the same school all the men in his family had been to even more so. So instead he’d picked out some liberal arts college out east; all four seasons, more rain and cold than he’d even know what to do with, and the promise of like-minded people, or at least people a little less so deeply entrenched in conservativeness as the people around his way. His mother had been unhappy, and his father even unhappier once Eugene had revealed his plans to study ornithology over the family tradition of medicine. It had been a big month of disappointments; he’d told them he was gay not long after. 

The timer on his coffee machine beeps, then, and Eugene unsticks himself from the windowsill to pace the length of his boxy little apartment to the kitchenette. After the month of disappointments he’d realised that his parents weren’t going to be inclined to pay his way through college like they had his brother, so Eugene had picked up a couple jobs and got to saving money. The apartment is the result of the last minute frantic few months of balls to the wall working; a stuffy little studio overlooking campus, the carpets old and scratchy underfoot, the refrigerator fan so loud that it kept him up at night at first, before he’d gotten used to it. Well worn; the walls repainted more times than Eugene has had hot dinners, and still chipped and stained and dinged up, just as bad as the furniture, or the fittings, or anything else. _Humble_, he thinks his father would call it, and it’s a far cry from the silent, museum-like atmosphere of his parents house but Eugene has grown into loving it in the two years he’s spent renting it. It’s charming, it’s unique, it’s _his_. 

He drinks a cup of coffee leaned up against the kitchen cabinets as he listens to the low din of move-in day across the street, mind whirring slowly through his well-travelled past. His flat stinks of smoke; clove cigarettes, to be precise, which tells him all he needs to know about his downstairs neighbour’s whereabouts. The smell of cigarette smoke is usually a good indication that he’s not only in the apartment but also _awake_, which are two important things to know whenever Eugene is attempting to figure out whether he’s gonna run into the guy in the hallway. And it’s not that he doesn’t want to; quite the opposite in fact, but he’s been away for a month visiting his parents during the last dregs of his summer break, and time apart has made him nervous. To say Eugene is nursing a small crush on the guy would be a slight misunderstanding. Eugene often feels more like some angel of death character to the stubbornly alive geriatric that his crush is proving to be. Unkillable, and certainly unable to be discouraged. So, he relies on cigarette smoke and the sporadic opening and closing of the front door of the apartment building to tell him whether he needs to brace himself for impact or not, because happening unexpectedly upon Shelton makes a car crash look tame.

The last time they’d spoken Shelton had slipped his thumb under the just-slightly-too-high-maybe-on-purpose-but-probably-not hem of Eugene’s shrunken t-shirt, and traced the jut of his hipbone just _so_ that Eugene had felt pink cheeked and drunk from the ghost of the sensation for days after. And then summer had wound around and Eugene had gone back south for August, and the days had slipped by in humid, boiling mundanity until he’d stepped foot back over the threshold of his apartment, and. Now. Cigarette smoke, the telltale creak of old linoleum, and it’s a testament to how old the building is and how thin the walls are that Eugene can hear Shelton talking on particularly quiet nights, a low murmur that Eugene has never been able to figure out whether it’s to somebody or to himself. Both are probable, even possible. There’s an edge to Shelton’s gaze sometimes that makes heady intimidation zip through Eugene’s stomach. Unknowable, mysterious, like a cold hard sheet of steel. He could have a girl in there, could have a boy, could just have his family on the other end of a phone line. 

It’s the not-knowing that makes it exciting. 

Surely enough, when Eugene finally deems himself caffeinated enough to start his morning and head down to do some laundry in the basement, his foot hasn’t even hit the middle stair before an apartment door is swinging open down the hall, and Shelton is sticking his curly head out of it.

“Hey.” He calls, and Eugene jumps despite himself, hand going for the bannisters as he juggles the heavy basket of laundry in his arms. “Lemme throw a couple things in your wash.”

“Fuck, Shelton.” Eugene grits out, shooting his neighbour a glare from his now-frozen position right in the middle of the staircase. “How’d you know I was comin’ out?”

Shelton’s eyes dart. “I can hear you.” Back and then away again, like a hummingbird; eyes never settling on anything for very long. He slouches, nearly sags, shoulder to the doorjamb as he uncrosses an arm from across his chest to gesture. “Your floor by the door creaks.”

“Great.” Eugene says, and descends the last half of the staircase before Shelton’s expectant head tilt reminds him of the question he’d let go unanswered. He rolls his eyes. “No, Snaf. Do your own laundry; last time you threw somethin’ in it turned half my work shirts pink.”

Shelton’s brows beetle, and he sags forward into Eugene’s space as he levels him with the full force of his huge, pale-eyed gaze. Close enough to smell those clove cigarettes on his clothes; sickly sweet and vaguely heady. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with pink.” He murmurs, and tilts his chin up. “C’mon, Gene. I ain’t got no change.”

Eugene swallows, eyes flicking down to Shelton’s soft, generous mouth, and then back up to that slightly disquieting gaze. He can feel his resolve cracking, and all it takes is a sweet, quizzical little head tilt from Shelton to make it crumble, and he relents. 

“Fine,” Eugene mutters, and the feeling of giving in is almost lost to the affection that comes with seeing Shelton’s triumphant grin. He knows he should be better about not letting Shelton take advantage, because God knows when you budge at much as a millimetre he’s the sort to take a mile, but it’s hard and the gratification of seeing him grin is far more attractive than something as little as trying to teach him a lesson. Eugene knows he’s about twenty years too late to teach Shelton anything, and doesn’t like to think of the time he’s wasted trying. “But you owe me,” He adds, thrown into the dim apartment Shelton had just backed into.

“You know I ain’t got a thing!” He calls back, and Eugene settles himself against the post at the bottom of the stairs to wait, that sweet smell of cloves still lingering from Shelton’s open door. 

Eugene has been inside a couple times; more often drunk than not. He crashes on Shelton’s couch if he ever manages to cajole Eugene out to one of the many parties he somehow always knows about, the stairs too daunting in the early hours of the morning with all that vodka thrown down his throat, so to Shelton’s ground floor apartment it is. Eugene knows that if he were to step inside now, it’d look the same as it had last time he’d visited — some frat party he and Shelton had left early, last summer before he’d bounced back to Alabama for a little while. It’s a small, dim apartment; an odd mirror of Eugene’s own right above. Cluttered, if he remembers correctly, full of odd trinkets and bits and pieces, spindly old furniture and stacks of books waist high. Shelton had dropped out of college not a semester into his first year, but it hadn’t seemed to slow him in his apparently voracious reading. Eugene vaguely remembers picking up a very old copy of Miller’s _Tropic of Cancer_, flipping it over to stare blearily at the back until a hand had touched his wrist, and —

“You told me it was just a couple things.” He mutters, as Shelton dumps an armful of clothes into the basket he’s holding. He shrugs, taking a step back as though drawn by some invisible string to that dim, sweet-smelling apartment behind him. 

“Couple, few.” He shrugs again. “How was your summer?”

Surprised by the sharp turn of topic, Eugene is silent for a moment, eyes darting over Shelton’s face as he works to keep up. “Good.” He says, finally, and the corner of Shelton’s mouth lifts in a smirk. Despite himself, Eugene can feel his ears going pink. “Yeah, good. Yours?”

“Thought more on what I was sayin’ last time we hung out?” He asks, and his smirk is sharp now; playful. His hand is braced to the doorjamb, and Eugene glances away when he tilts the crown of his head to it, effortlessly attractive even dressed in a ratty old t-shirt and a pair of sweats. Gazing up at Eugene from under his lashes like he knows how good he looks. 

Eugene stutters, half-turning away in his surprise as he mutters, “Maybe, yeah,” and then, when Shelton opens his mouth as though to press more, he hastily adds, “Gotta jet, Snaf. I’ll bring your stuff up later.”

His smile settles, and he drops his hand from the door frame, takes another step into the cave of his apartment. “Sure.” He says, “Thanks, Gene.”

Eugene nods awkwardly, backing away down the hall until Shelton’s front door closes and he’s released, taking the creaky steps down to the basement two at a time as his mind works valiantly to try and process what just happened. He can smell Shelton on his clothes; that warm body smell, sweat and deodorant. Their almost-conversation, that near miss. Eugene wonders if he were to leave a shirt of his balled up with a shirt of Shelton’s, whether it would take on his smell; that warm body warm cigarette smell. 

He tosses the load into the washer before he can give much time to the thought, and braces his hands to the shuddering top of it as it begins to fill with water. The sweet, damp smell of the basement is thick in his nose; dryer sheets and mildew. Yeah, he remembers their conversation. Yeah, it was safe to say he’d thought a little more on what was said since they’d last seen each other. 

Eugene can’t bring himself to ascend the basement steps just yet. He sets a timer on his phone, settles himself back against the juddering washer, and presses his fingers hard enough into his eyes that he sees stars.

It’d been May. He remembers because it had been Burgie’s birthday two weeks previous so, early May, mid-May. Whatever. _May_. And Shelton had dragged him to some terrible college frat party, and had been so elusive about how he knew the guy who was throwing it that Eugene _knew_ they must have been, or had been, fucking. Which of course had thrown Eugene into a sulk which had only deepened under the press of alcohol, of bad company, of Shelton sticking close to his side all night and not letting him have even a _second_ to have a smoke and muse the whole concept over.

And then, out of the blue, like he’d been reading Eugene’s sad rush of thoughts all night and had been waiting for the right moment to strike, Shelton had leaned in close enough that Eugene could smell the cologne he had on, could smell the cloves on his breath, and had murmured, “If you’re jealous, don’t be.” Eugene can’t remember his response, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t care to, has dug a deep hole and thrown it in bodily, but he remembers how Shelton’s expression had shifted after he had spoken. Cat-like, the slow slip of his eyes half closed. 

Under Eugene’s hands, against the small of his back, the washer shakes violently, jolting him from his memories. And it’s a well worn route, that particular night. That particular conversation. The way Shelton’s thumb had crept under his shirt and along his skin. Really, Shelton is remembering wrong; there was no real question asked. No real concept presented to Eugene, nothing near as neat. No, just the rough catch of his hand on Eugene’s hip, and the half-drunken admission, _if you let it, this could be something._

————

They chat in the hall when Eugene comes by to drop Shelton his clothes; some half-formed plan in his head to go grab coffee right after just to have a valid escape route if things take a turn for the serious. Shelton keeps him longer than he’d anticipated, which is somehow always the case, no matter how many hours Eugene spends caught on Shelton’s apartment threshold, unable to tear himself away.

“Move-in day today.” Shelton says, leaned up against the doorjamb as Eugene shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot, caught in that heavy pale-eyed gaze of his. He’s holding his clothes close to his chest, which is bare; Eugene had obviously caught him just out the shower, judging by the thick dampness of his curls.

“I saw.” He replies, trying his very best to look everywhere but at the tattoo that curls over Shelton’s shoulder. A flower; so perpetually fascinating to Eugene, as un-tattooed as he is. 

“Fresh meat.” The smile that curls over his face is lecherous, and Eugene scoffs, half turning to eye the front door. Shelton up close smells like soap, like cheap floral shampoo, and Eugene can feel his ears turning pink as his mind presents image after image to him. _If you let it_, he thinks. Always so very Shelton to shift the responsibility onto someone else. He needs an out, fast. 

“As if you even go there anymore.”

Shelton shrugs. “Still got my student ID lyin’ around here somewhere. Could use the dining hall as much as I like if I felt like it.”

That drags Eugene’s attention back, and he laughs, and odd sort of affectionate amusement welling up inside him. “Do you think that counts as fraud?”

Shelton grins, something wickedly playful in his expression as he rocks forward on the balls of his feet. “Hey, a stint in prison don’t sound so bad.” His smile grows as Eugene laughs again, shaking his head at the absurdity of Shelton’s words. “I mean it. Rent free, and I could get prison fit?” 

“All for some stale fries?”

“And all the fountain soda I could drink.” Shelton says, and then he raises the clothes to his face for a second, a frown appearing between his brows. Before Eugene can ask, he mutters, “New detergent, huh?”

It’s enough to unstick Eugene from his spot. “Okay,” He says, rolling his eyes as he takes a step backward, the old linoleum creaking under his shoe. “Bye, Shelton.”

He makes it no more than a few steps down the hall towards the front door before he’s being pulled up short; Shelton calling out, “Hey, hold up,” behind him. He turns, fixes Shelton with an expression that he hopes conveys just how quickly Shelton needs to get to the point with whatever he’s holding onto, and crosses his arms. Shelton grins; wide, toothy. “There’s a party tonight.”

“Okay,” Eugene says, slow. Like he’s not experiencing a vivid body memory of the last time he and Shelton and alcohol had all gotten together. The slip of skin on skin, a hand to his wrist, _Tropic of Cancer_ abandoned to the side table from where he’d picked it up. “And?”

Shelton’s smile grows, like he knows exactly what kind of thoughts are running through Eugene’s distracted mind. “Wanna go?” 

_If you let it_, Eugene thinks, caught like a bug on a pin by Shelton’s doe eyed, sleepy gaze. Standing stock still in the middle of the hall like Shelton had just asked him the question to life itself; like he’d asked him the most unanswerable question in the world. And in some ways, he had. No, Eugene doesn’t want to go to a party tonight, not with his head all twisted up and half back home in Alabama as it is. Half lingering on the events of near four months ago, and half far too uncomfortably in the present, hyperaware of the flit of Shelton’s eyes from his mouth, to his chest, and back to his eyes. No; he’s busy, he has schoolwork, he has _work-_work. No time or energy to be flirted at in a dark room for a couple hours, to be flirted at and teased and touched, and then left with nothing to show for it but an alcohol induced headache and winding, frustrating memories of snatches of half-remembered conversation, or of how warm Shelton’s hands are compared to his own. 

That’s the largest part of him; the sensible part, the part that keeps Shelton at an arms length, though only just. He daren’t even spare thought to the smaller part of himself, the part that yearns and craves and wants. 

He takes a step back towards the door, and watches as Shelton’s smile eases into something far less amicable; a little sharper edged, as though irritated by Eugene’s predictable lameness. “I’m sorry,” He says, and means it. “I’ve got a mountain of reading for class like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Ain’t that meant to be what you were doin’ all summer?” Shelton asks, his laundry still clutched to his chest. He shifts it slightly, giving Eugene a glance at the barbell through his nipple that he always tries his very best to forget is there. He drops his eyes to the dirty, scuffed lino underfoot, and clears his throat.

“Summer was busy.” It’s not a complete lie; he was far busier wallowing over all the what ifs around Shelton to even crack a book all summer. “I’m sorry, Shelton. Next time.”

He flaps a hand. “Yeah, yeah.” It’s a clear indication that their chat has run its course, and Eugene just shrugs apologetically before he turns for the door.

He feels Shelton’s eyes on him long after he’s stepped into the street; that heavy, magnetic gaze slid through him and kept there, a hot stake in the pit of his stomach. It feels near to regret, if he chose to ruminate on it which of course he doesn’t. Instead he throws himself into the day’s shift at work, keeping his mind far from the party he’ll be missing tonight, far from old memories too loaded to give time to.

—————

It’s late by the time Eugene hears the front door go; well past two, though he can’t judge Shelton because being witness to his drunken stumbling in means that Eugene too is up and burning the midnight oil. The door slams, the whole building shaking, and Eugene tips his ear towards the door, eyes still on the notes he’s been working on since around midnight. It’s been slow going, the routine of university hard to ease back into after a summer spent melting in the sun and hanging around with childhood friends doing all the same things they had done at seventeen. The can of Red Bull he’d cracked open a few hours ago and told himself that’d be the only one that night stands amongst its fallen brothers, and Eugene feels so jittery from the caffeine that he’s keyed into every sound, every creak of the building around him. Around an hour ago he’d been focused, but now he’s so truly distracted it almost comes as a relief when, instead of hearing the open and close of Shelton’s apartment door, he hears the creak of the stairs leading up to his apartment, and then the sound of the old boards in the hallway groaning under somebody’s weight. He rolls his eyes, and stands, crossing the room to intercept his midnight caller before he can bang on the front door and wake the whole building up. 

He doesn’t have to check the spy hole to know who it is. There’s only one person on this side of the country who’d be up and bothering him in the small hours of the morning, only one person who’d know that Eugene would even be awake to bother.

And surely enough, there stands Shelton on his threshold; rumpled and drunk, his cheeks flushed and eyes very bright as he raises his eyebrows, and sways just slightly. “Hello.” He says, and if he’s surprised that Eugene had beaten him to the door, he doesn’t show it, just braces his hand to the doorway and grins to himself, “Good morning.”

Eugene snorts. “Good party?”

Shelton shrugs expansively, eyes heavy lidded and fixed on some point over Eugene’s shoulder. He sways again. “Can I come in?” His hand hooks in the worn leather cord he always wears strung around his neck, and when he turns his attention on Eugene, he feels himself flush to match Shelton. Green eyes burning through the dark hallway. No one has ever looked at Eugene like Shelton does, and it’s a dangerous thing. 

“You have your very own apartment downstairs.” He murmurs, trying to keep his tone pitched indifferent, but doesn’t do a very good job judging by the way Shelton’s sloppy, drunken smile slides seamlessly into that very familiar smirk of his.

“But I wanna hang out with you.” He says, and Eugene thinks of warm brown skin, the smell of incense and cigarettes and beer. _Why not?_ That small, over-caffeinated part of him thinks — the part that’s been doing the decision making for the best part of a whole night and isn’t quite ready to relinquish things to better places. _Fuck_, those better places think, as Eugene steps aside and inclines his head.

“Well when you put it that way.” He says, and Shelton’s eyes are huge and wicked in his face as he steps over the threshold, brushing past so closely that Eugene can smell his clothes, his hair. That confusing mix of his own and something very different. Detergent, and the same floral shampoo scent he’d smelled on him earlier in the day, his wet curls dark and thick.

They’re dry now, and crazed; like Shelton has been running his fingers through them all night. _Or someone else_, his mind helpfully inputs, and Eugene shuts the lamp off at his desk in some vague attempt to make the voice shut up, before crossing the room to join Shelton where he’d crumpled into the couch.

“Workin’ hard or hard at work?” Shelton slurs, face pressed against the back of the sofa, just the high sweep of his cheekbone and the pout of his mouth visible. Dark lashes against his cheeks. Eugene presses his lips together to keep from laughing.

“You mean ‘hardly working’.” He murmurs, easing Shelton’s feet into his lap so he can begin to work at the knotty shoelaces of his boots. “Right?”

“If you’re hardly workin’ then you shoulda come out tonight.” Shelton replies, bracing his elbow to the back of the couch in an attempt to work himself upright. He glares, ignoring Eugene’s helpless grin. “Never pegged you for a liar, man.”

“I’m saying you mixed up —” Eugene stops himself, and shakes his head. “Never mind, c’mon.” He pulls one boot off, and the other follows a moment later, thumping to the floor. “You had a good night?” He repeats, curling a hand over Shelton’s ankle as he lets his head drop back against the arm of the couch.

“Mmm.” He hums, hands folded over his chest, eyes heavy lidded but fixed unerringly on Eugene, hazy through the dark room. “Better if you’d made it.”

“That’s not true.” Eugene says gently, grinning when Shelton huffs and rolls his eyes; over-exaggerated in his dramatics. “You made it all summer without me, I ain’t that much fun.”

Shelton throws his hand over his face, and Eugene feels the mood of the room shift very tangibly as he exhales, and then groans; pressing his fingers into his eyes. Like something sliding firmly into place; Eugene can practically hear the _clunk_ of it. “It weren’t much fun.” And there’s an edge of something over-honest and melancholic to his voice as he adds, “I missed you.”

Eugene bares his teeth at nothing, uncomfortable to be drawing such a confession from Shelton when he’s blind drunk and halfway to sleep on his couch. He knows Shelton would never admit to it in any other circumstance, and it feels particularly scummy to be sat sober listening to him say things he never would if he was sober too. It’s not like that last drunken time together; the two of them holding each other up as they’d weaved their way to Shelton’s apartment, and then the book, and the hand on the wrist, and and and —

Shelton is snoring. 

Very carefully, Eugene eases his feet from his lap, and stands, trying to tread as lightly as possible as he fetches a blanket from his own bed, which he drapes over Shelton’s sleeping form. In the moment Eugene was gone, Shelton had shifted; curled himself up in a tight little ball, his face sweet and pressed into the back of the sofa as if to keep the light from his eyes. Eugene watches him for a moment, caught up in the still silence of the apartment, in the rise and fall of Shelton’s shoulder as he breathes, in the way the streetlamp outside the window floods him in shades of sickly orange. _Let it_, he thinks, and huffs quietly at the thought. The deep dark circles under Shelton’s eyes are making him feel distinctly protective, distinctly tender, and he draws the blanket up higher on Shelton’s shoulder as he feels his pulse settle, feels the tenseness ease from his shoulders. He looks so peaceful in sleep that Eugene feels peaceful too, like some kind of contact high, and that feeling carries him through to bed, brain fuzzy and full of all the what ifs he can possibly conjure.


	2. Chapter 2

On Fridays Eugene’s schedule becomes such a joke that he’s sure it’s some ancient karma coming back to bite him in the ass; he’s sure whoever did his schedule is some deeply evil mastermind hellbent on making him sweaty and angry at 4pm on a Friday afternoon. First he has class on the main campus, at 1pm, and then he has to race across the city, get stuck in the Friday afternoon rush, just to make it late and red faced to his last class. He spends thirty of the fifty minutes the lecture takes trying to cool down, and then his evening is lost to him as he tries to get back uptown to where his apartment is. Most Fridays end in him eating a takeaway alone in front of some horrible TV show, too exhausted by the circus that Fridays always are for him now to do anything else. Sometimes Shelton comes over and playfully peer pressures him into getting high with him, sometimes he sits alone and drinks a beer by the light of countless _Seinfeld_ re-runs. 

Today he has to deal with all that _in the rain_.

Luckily Eugene is the kind of guy to have an umbrella in his rucksack. Unluckily, it proves very difficult to battle through that Friday rush of people with an umbrella, and so he gives it up for a few blocks until the crowd thins and he can chance it again, by which time of course he’s soaked. And he knows he probably looks like a lunatic; stood at the crossing under his umbrella with his hair slicked wet to his forehead, but can’t bring himself to care. Not when the light is stubbornly staying red and class started ten minutes ago. 

“Gene,” Comes a voice to his left, and he startles, taking a step back into a deep puddle that immediately soaks his shoe, and then his sock. “You’re lookin’ a little pink, man.”

It’s Shelton, of course. His curls caught wild by the rain, a cigarette he’s somehow managed to keep lit dangling from between his lips. Eugene is so surprised to see him out and about in the daylight that he’s speechless for a second; by the time he’s gathered himself Shelton has insinuated himself under the cover of his umbrella, smelling like sweet clove cigarettes in the small space. “What’re you doing out?” He asks, finally, and Shelton laughs, a hand to Eugene’s elbow like he needs to steady himself it’s so hilarious.

“I ain’t a vampire.” He says, though Eugene is still a little doubtful. Shelton bares his teeth at him, an approximation of a smile, and quips, “Umbrella gotta leak, Gene?”

He scowls, and it’s far too much effort to explain the whole having-an-umbrella-up-in-a-busy-street situation, and he’s still standing at this damn crossing, so he settles for retorting, “How come you’re nice and dry?”

The lights change just as Shelton opens his mouth to respond, and they both get caught up in the sea of people crossing the street; nothing but flotsam and jetsam being carried along in the close little pocket of humid warmth beneath Eugene’s umbrella. Shelton bumps into his side, hooks his arm into Eugene’s as though he doesn’t want to lose him, and between that and the stink of that little black cigarette, Eugene feels like his head is just barely tethered to his shoulders by the time they finally reach the other side of the crosswalk.

They pause; Eugene expecting Shelton to slip out from underneath the cover and go as quickly as he’d come, but instead he just gives Eugene an expectant look, and tugs him back into walking. His arm is still hooked through Eugene’s, and he’s helpless to do anything about it with the way he’s holding the umbrella over both their heads.

“Headed to work.” Shelton says, to the question Eugene had asked half a conversation ago. He catches Eugene’s sidelong look of disbelief, and laughs. “What? Why d’you keep lookin’ at me like that?”

“I don’t know!” Eugene sputters, unable to keep his own laugh from his voice as Shelton knocks playfully into him, sending them both stumbling to the side a little. “I’ve never run into you outside before, and I thought you worked nights!”

“It’s a pretty big fuckin’ city, Gene.” He says, something teasing and wicked in the line of his mouth. He sinks his teeth into his lower lip, and nudges closer again, doe eyes upturned on Eugene. “How d’you know I normally work nights?”

_I listen out to make sure you come home_, Eugene thinks, and realising how creepy that sounds, rephrases. “I get up at the same time you finish.”

Their feet splash through a large puddle they’d both missed, so wrapped up in their warm little world beneath the umbrella, and Shelton curses and steps out from underneath for a second to skirt the next one. The smell of the wet city rushes in; wet concrete and the silt smell of the river, garbage and bodies and rain-fresh air. Then Shelton is back, and it’s cloves and aftershave and clean hair again. He seems unfazed by Eugene’s borderline creepy admittance.

“I know,” He says, amicable. “I always know you’re up when I come in too.”

Eugene decides not to pull that apart in his head the way he’s so accustomed to, and instead asks, “How?”

Shelton flashes him a smile, curls newly wet from his foray out from under the umbrella. The rain pounds on the fabric over their heads, a calming little rush of white noise that near-obscures Shelton’s drawling, “My bed’s under yours.” His smile grows; wicked, those sharp little eyeteeth of his. “I hear your feet hit the ground.”

Eugene stares at him, speechless even as Shelton wrinkles his nose up and laughs, that loud guffaw that Eugene hears through the walls sometimes. Before he can find the words to respond, Shelton is drawing up short, amusement still dancing in his eyes as he jerks his thumb over his shoulder and says, “Alright, here’s my stop.”

“Your…?” Eugene tilts the umbrella back, squinting up into the sheets of rain as he takes in their surroundings. “Jesus, Shelton!” He rounds on the man, mouth snapping shut as he finds himself turning to empty air; Shelton having slipped away as quickly and silently as he’d come, leaving Eugene here in _midtown_ so far off his route to class that he knows he’ll never make it before the end now. His shoulders drop, practically hearing the mark his lecturer is probably making next to his name at that very moment. 

He stands there for a few minutes feeling sorry for himself, taking in the myriad of tall grey buildings around him and wondering which one Shelton had spirited off into. Wondering whether he’d get away with it if he walked into Shelton’s place of work and strangled him for so expertly distracting him and taking him off course just to keep from getting caught in the rain. Eugene can’t imagine Shelton’s coworkers would care; hell, they might even line up and wait for their own turn. The little shit.

In his pocket, his phone buzzes, and Eugene digs it out absentmindedly as he scans the wet grey world beyond his umbrella. The prospect of turning right back around and trudging home is depressing, but the prospect of doing literally anything else is even more depressing than that.

_I get off work at 6_, the text reads, and Eugene snorts to himself, grudgingly amused by the balls that Shelton has. _Somehow know ur about to go home + wallow, will be round w/ weed + food by 7._

_What if I don’t want you over?_ Eugene types out in reply, lip caught between his teeth as he watches the three dots of Shelton’s reply bounce. 

_Couldn’t stop me,_ comes the reply, followed quickly by, _Wouldn’t believe u_.

Eugene tucks his phone away, his annoyance easily eclipsed by Shelton’s text, a smile smacked silly on his face as he turns back in the direction he’d come. It’s the fucking simple things in life, isn’t it? Suddenly he feels less awful about missing class, about being manipulated out of his way by Shelton and his big eyes, that disarming, charming way he has. They haven’t hung out since before summer, not properly since the whole drunken fiasco in May in which Shelton had spooked Eugene into avoidance. He feels a little better prepared for it, now. Ever since that first night back when Shelton had stumbled upstairs to fall asleep on his couch, Eugene’s nerves have alleviated somewhat. Shelton has said no more about what happened before summer break, and so neither has Eugene, and they exist together once more in that comfortable, flirtatious space they’ve occupied for a long time. It feels better than second guessing every move he makes, every word Shelton speaks to him, even if it doesn’t feel as good as that night in Shelton’s apartment — the book, the hand to his wrist, the kiss. 

Eugene barely remembers it, which makes it a little worse. He knows it’s never to happen again, and it would’ve been nice to have any memory of it, something to think about on nights he feels particularly like he’s missing something, nights where his mind turns that conversation between them over and over around like a well worn talisman. _If you let it_, he thinks, feet splashing in puddles as he walks, head too far in the clouds to watch where he’s going. 

———

Shelton drops by his at eight, unapologetic as he jiggles at Eugene’s doorknob, tapping at the door with the rings on his fingers in an irritating staccato until Eugene yanks it open to reveal a grinning Shelton on the doorstep. 

“Why d’you lock your door?” He asks in lieu of a greeting, crossing straight to Eugene’s kitchenette as he begins to unload the shoppers bag swinging from the crook of his arm. 

“To keep you out.” Eugene replies, watching Shelton unload onions and tins of black beans onto the countertop. He’d changed, somewhere between slipping out from under Eugene’s umbrella to now; a pair of navy workman’s pants, a white tee dotted with rain, smeared with black across the chest. “Where do you work?” He adds, a belated question, and Shelton throws him a teasing glance over his shoulder.

“What, you wanna come visit me?”

Eugene squints, nonplussed. “No, it’s just I’ve known you for four years and I still don’t know where you work.”

A package of ground beef joins the ingredients on the counter, and Shelton says, “I work in midtown at a garage. Do you have a crockpot?” At Eugene’s blank look, he nods to himself. “No worries, I’ll grab mine.” And then, “How does a man in his twenties not have a crockpot?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Eugene laughs; Snafu following him over the edge a second later. “What? Are you cooking for me?”

“Didn’t I say I would?” He asks, and Eugene realises belatedly that he’s stoned; eyes bloodshot and heavy in his face. He laughs again. “Okay, shit, I forgot to say. I’m making chilli.”

“Did you smoke a bowl before coming here?” Eugene asks, feeling something light and happy and affectionate growing in his chest. Snafu tips him a wink, taps the side of his nose. “Oh c’mon, you’re gonna cook me dinner but you’re not gonna share your weed?”

“You’re a drain on me.” Snafu announces, a smile playing around his mouth, and Eugene scoffs. Like he hasn’t been doing Shelton’s laundry weekly practically since they’d met. “It’s true. First my crockpot, then my weed.”

“You offered.” Eugene says, rounding the kitchen island to grab the cup of coffee that Snafu’s knocking at the door had made him abandon. The room is warm around them; Eugene’s precious little space heater chugging away as the rain lashes itself against the front windows. Cosy, with all the lamps lit and Snafu standing pretty and doe eyed just a foot away, a fond smile on his face as he watches Eugene settle himself against the island, elbows to the counter. He smells like the outside; cold and clean, like rain. Like pot, like cigarettes. Eugene wants to wrap himself up in it.

“I offered ‘cos you looked like you were havin’ a bad day.” Snafu says, finally, dropping his gaze as he begins to paw through Eugene’s cutlery drawer. “Out in the rain lookin’ all stressed and shit.” He snorts, but his expression is undeniably tender when he looks back up. Eugene feels caught by it, unsure how to act or respond with the weight of that expression on him. Then Snafu cuts his eyes away and Eugene relaxes a little, straightening up just slightly as if a few inches of distance between them will screw his head on any straighter. He _had_ had a bad day, and feels so touched that Snafu had noticed that he falls silent, warming his hands on his coffee as he watches Snafu chop onions; those big hands of his surprisingly deft.

The evening slips away. They smoke up while the chilli ticks along in the crockpot that Snafu had sent Eugene downstairs for — _pull your weight, Gene_ — and between the smell of the food, the weed, and the cosy warmth of the room, Eugene feels as though he’s sinking bodily through the sofa into Snafu’s apartment below. The air feels thick, hazy; with smoke, with warmth, with the atmosphere between them. 

Snafu is flipping through Eugene’s record collection, oblivious to Eugene’s slow slide through the floor. His curls have dried wild after his afternoon getting caught in the rain, and Eugene can barely tear his eyes away from him. The colour of his shirt against his coppery suntan, the way the lamp set on the table nearby picks out the high, handsome planes of his face. The arch of a cheekbone, the curve of his full mouth. Eugene wonders if he knows how handsome he is; wonders if he knows what an effect on people he has. 

He holds up a record, the movement jerking Eugene from his mindless, stoned reverie, and grins at him; sleepy, slow. “You like this one?” He asks, his accent a slow drip of honey over his words. Eugene wonders if that’s why they’d fallen in together so readily; two Southern boys against the world up in the cold north. He gestures again with the record; The Rolling Stones, _Sticky Fingers_. “I used to jerk off to this.”

Eugene blinks. “The album?”

Snafu snorts, smile growing as he flips the record back around to look at it. “Nah, the cover.” He kisses his teeth; considering. “Funny the shit that turns out to be formative, huh?”

Eugene lets his head roll back against the sofa cushion; anything to disengage from Snafu and the concept of jerking off. “Rolling Stones turned you gay.” He murmurs, eyes on the water stains on the ceiling, on the hairline cracks in the plaster. Snafu just laughs, and Eugene hears the record being slid back into place, trying his very hardest to ignore the tug of sleepy arousal that Snafu’s words have let snake through him. It’s hard, and harder still when Shelton abandons Eugene’s small collection of records to join him on the sofa, worming his way into a comfortable spot on the loveseat with no regard for Eugene at all. His toes push under Eugene’s thigh, his knees pulled close to his chest as he gestures for the bowl, still held limply in Eugene’s hand.

“Never have I met someone who hogs a bowl like you, Sledge.” He smacks his zippo against his knee, “C’mon, give it up.”

Eugene gives it up, the weed rendering him a little stuck, a little speechless; all he’s good for is watching Snafu, caught somewhere between a boneless haze and rigid want. Shelton’s big hands, the charming bony little jut of his wrist, his stubble darkened jaw. Eugene wants to kiss him, but it’s not a new feeling. His dick feels half-interested and thick between his spread thighs, and he slides down deeper into the clutch of the couch a little, just for the excuse to press his thighs together, to lean into the feeling. Weed always makes him horny, or maybe it’s that he nearly always smokes up with Shelton — it’s a chicken or the egg situation, really. Shelton’s comment about the album cover hadn’t helped, and his proximity now to Eugene is only proving more problematic; he smells warm and musky — sweat and cigarettes, and Eugene can only imagine how good he must smell even closer. The hollow of his throat, the crown of his head, the crook of his elbow and the hair on his stomach and under his arms that Eugene can’t tear his eyes away from, the guy’s shirt as shrunken as most of his clothes seem to be. 

“You’re staring.” He says, and Eugene watches his lips move, watches his mouth stretch into a smirk, before he even registers he’s been addressed. When he does, he startles; straightening himself up from his slumped position, arms crossing over his chest as though it could hide the thoughts that were meandering through his brain not ten seconds ago. 

“I’m not.” He says, too quickly, and wonders if his pink face can be easily passed off as nothing more than a flush from the warmth of the room. Judging by Shelton’s widening smile, it can’t be. 

“I think you were.” Shelton’s voice is slow, richly amused. He hasn’t moved, hasn’t made any attempt to pull his t-shirt straight; Eugene’s eyes keep catching on the outline of his nipple barbell through the thin, tight fabric, and he knows that Shelton can tell but doesn’t know how to just look _away_. “It always comes around to this, huh?”

The room smells like cooking food, like weed. Like Snafu’s stinky-sweet cigarettes, like _him_. Eugene is hard, he can feel it when he shifts to press back against the arm of the sofa, away from Snafu like those mere inches of distance make a difference. “Comes around to what?” He asks, voice hushed, and there’s such a wicked look in Snafu’s eye he finds he can’t tear away from it, as attractive and bewitching as it is. Wild curls, those huge, heavy green eyes, his dart of a smirk. The rings on his fingers wink in the buttery late afternoon sunlight as he lifts a hand to push his hair back from his face, and Eugene swallows, throat dry, dick throbbing between his thighs.

“When we’re drunk,” He shrugs a shoulder, effortlessly handsome. “High, whatever. It’s harder to ignore it then, huh?” His mouth curls, as if urging Eugene to take the bait, to ask —

“Ignore what?”

Shelton’s smirk is fully fledged now. “You know.” He raises his eyebrows, and Eugene just stares at him, heart pounding a rhythm in his chest. It feels something like fear, if fear was all wrapped up in arousal and attraction and anticipation. Then Snafu tilts his head to the side, the pretty little lady tattooed on his inner bicep smiling demurely at Eugene as he puts a hand behind his head, and says, “That you wanna fuck me.”

There’s a long beat of silence that follows his words. “Jesus Christ.” Eugene breathes, dumbfounded. Shelton sinks his teeth into his lower lip, playful.

“I’m sorry. I got tired of waitin’ ‘round for you to get to it.” 

_If you let it,_ Eugene thinks, wading through the slow slipstream of his thoughts. He feels a step behind Snafu in a small but significant way; gaping stupidly at him for a second as Shelton’s expression settles into one of sharp amusement. “I _do_.” He says, finally, twisting slightly in his seat so that his back is against the arm of the couch, and Snafu is still stretched out into the space where his legs once were, leonine and lazy and looking very much like the cat that had gotten the cream. “Fuck, Shelton, I just didn’t know if you —”

“Did I not drop enough hints?” He asks, grinning, and Eugene presses his hands to his hot cheeks, and shrugs. “Was making out with you in my apartment not enough?”

“I’m just stupid.” Eugene breathes, eyes wide on Shelton, who is laughing; a sleepy, stoned chuckle. He grins, that laughter infectious. “No, I am! Really.”

Shelton shakes his head, expression fond as he fumbles in his lap for his lighter. Eugene watches him hit the bowl again, swallowing thickly as he lets his hands drop from his face, the enormity of the whole situation finally settling over him. _What now?_ He wants to ask, because Shelton seems to have moved beyond the topic; making lazy smoke rings towards the ceiling as he relaxes back against the arm of the sofa. Their legs are tangled together, Shelton’s foot in its hole-y sock pressed comfortably up against Eugene’s calf, and the casual closeness is nice, it’s comfortable. Eugene imagines closing the space between them, crawling in between Shelton’s thighs, putting his mouth to the hollow of his throat, and has to cut the train of thought loose at the surge of arousal it sends through him. Stronger than before; more focused, clarified. Maybe it’s just the weed fog lifting slightly, or maybe it’s because Shelton is looking at him with something thoughtful and impish in his expression; his big doe eyes very dark and heavy lidded through the warm, smoky room. 

Eugene swallows again, throat sticking with how dry his mouth is. He’s so turned on he feels like Shelton can tell just by looking at him; can tell that when he shifts Eugene can feel his underwear sticking to him, can feel his dick fat and aching between his legs. Fuck it, he _knows_ Shelton can tell, it’s there in every line of his body, his face. Radiating smugness, radiating effortless irresistible confidence. The dip of his heavy eyelids, the slow curl of his mouth as he very deliberately lets his knee drop to the side, opening his legs up as Eugene shifts to accommodate him. The silence between them is thick, full of the muffled sounds of the rain outside, of the warm noises of the space heater, and Eugene knows he couldn’t break it if he tried. He’s speechless, pinned fast to the arm of the sofa by Shelton’s eyes, helplessly turned on.

“You wanna do something about it?” Shelton asks, voice like honey, like thick black molasses; sweet and slow and dangerous. As Eugene watches, he slides his hand over the front of his pants, sensual and gorgeous with the romantic curl of his hair, and the way his eyelids dip just slightly at the touch of his hand to his dick. 

_Let it,_ Eugene thinks, a strange surge of boldness taking over him as he slouches a little in his seat, arousal a bright little thrill in his stomach as he murmurs, “What were you thinking?” Shelton’s face splits into a pleased, knowing smirk, and his eyes flick over Eugene, who feels flushed pink and turned on from his attention, still stoned and hazy enough around the edges to make the consequences of this seem very far away.

“Why don’t you touch yourself?” He asks, fingers already fiddling with the button fly of his work pants, and Eugene laughs at his eagerness.

“I’m trans.” He says, just to get it out of the way before they get any further into whatever is unfolding here. “Just so you know,” He tacks on, because Shelton has shrugged at him, eyes wide in his face.

“I know,” He mutters, bemused, and they both dissolve into laughter at the same time; stupid, stoned laughter. “Gene, you told me like, two years ago.”

“Did I?” He cries, unable to keep his laughter in as Shelton wipes at his eyes, grinning. The heavy, loaded atmosphere has lifted somewhat; Eugene feels more at ease, like this is something more normal between them as Shelton nudges his foot playfully against his side, something very affectionate in his eyes. 

“Yes, you did.” He reaches across to abandon the bowl to the coffee table, and when he turns back his hands go right to his fly, popping the buttons along it like an afterthought. “You were drunk.”

“Oh.” Eugene ruminates on that for a second, eyes stuck on on Shelton’s big, nimble hands as his brain ticks over. “Did you take it well?”

Shelton snorts, looking up at Eugene from under his eyelashes as he eases back into his sprawl, hand idly tracing the waistband of his underwear. “Do you think we’d be here right now if I didn’t?” He asks, and his mouth twitches at Eugene’s answering shrug. “C’mon, you wanna do this?”

Eugene doesn’t hesitate; nodding quickly as his hands to go his own pants, heart in his throat and blooming red with affection as Shelton laughs at his eagerness, still trailing his own fingers over the dark hair on his stomach, leading down into his underwear. Eugene doesn’t tug his clothes off, just stuffs his hand down the front of his jeans to where he’s hardened up and aching for it. It’s a relief when he finally presses his fingers down on himself, hips lifting up to meet the touch, and he can’t hold back the low moan at how it feels; fingers dipping down to where he’s wet, drawing back over his dick to give himself something to rub himself off with. Shelton is watching him with something hungry in his eyes; starving. Those big pale eyes under the sweep of his dark lashes, the sweet slope of his full top lip as his mouth drops open on a near silent noise of pleasure at seeing Eugene touch himself; his own hand passes over the front of his pants again, just teasing and pressing at the hard line of his dick.

“Lemme see you.” Eugene murmurs, dick jumping under his fingers as Shelton’s mouth curves; a loose smirk. His foot flexes against Eugene’s thigh as he finally tugs his underwear down, bunching up at the base of his hard dick, freed just enough for him to wrap his fist around it. And Eugene wants it — he wants to taste him, to nuzzle his face down into the dark hair at the crux of his thighs, to feel him leaking and hard in his hand, his mouth, his —

Shelton’s thumb catches at the vague outline of his nipple piercing, and Eugene groans, and laughs, tugging at his hard dick in earnest now as he watches Shelton touch his own. It’s thrilling to be able to watch him; even though it may be a little _odd_. Eugene wishes he’d kissed him, wishes he’d been the one to tug on his nipple piercing, to make him moan; head heavy on his shoulders as he jerks loosely at the head of his dick, hard and flushed and wet between his fingers. Eugene wants him so bad it feels like something physical, something all crammed up in his chest, in the back of his throat, and he’s so wet he can feel it on the insides of his thighs, so wet that he can feel it welling up under his dick, making everything so slick and hot and easy down there that he can’t keep the noises he’s making quiet. And Shelton seems to be drinking him in; eyes on Eugene as though he’s transfixed, as though his own pleasure is secondary to watching Eugene get off, and the weight of his attention is as arousing as it is heady. Eugene is sweating in the close room, spreading his legs wider and wider in the tight space of the sofa, feeling flushed red right to his nipples and drunk off the expression on Shelton’s face alone.

“You smell good.” He murmurs, accent thick and voice pitched low, rough with how turned on he is. Eugene clenches his jaw, breathes a near-silent, _fuck_ to himself as his fingers slip over his dick, so sensitised and slick he feels like he could come at any minute. He’s caught between embarrassment that Shelton can smell how wet he is — can smell how bad he wants him — and deep, consuming arousal; then Shelton’s eyes flick over him, from face to collarbone to stomach, to where his hand is working at himself in his pants, and the arousal becomes a wave that he gladly succumbs to. He moans — uncontrollable, and watches as Shelton squeezes at his dick at the noise, mouth opening on a small, near-hurt sound of pleasure as he works his hips up into his fist. “You ever thought about this?” He asks, voice ragged, his big hooded eyes fixed unerringly on Eugene’s face. 

“Jerking off in front of you?” Eugene asks, and laughs, a breathless sound of amusement as he presses his fingers hard to the top of his dick. His hips follow; pitching upward just slightly, and he knows if he keeps this up — if Shelton doesn’t stop looking at him like he’d love to pull him apart and fucking eat him — he’s not gonna last another second. “Not exactly. A little more skin-to-skin in my fantasies.” 

Shelton’s expression turns wicked. “But you had ‘em. Fantasies.” The crockpot chimes behind them; Eugene couldn’t pay it less mind if he _tried_ — Shelton’s eyes barely flick from his face, his lip caught between his teeth as he pushes his t-shirt up his stomach, and murmurs “Tell me.” Shameless, with a grin on his face and his hand splayed over the large dark tattoo on his stomach. Like he’s waiting for Eugene to speak before he starts touching himself again, and Eugene knows that if he wasn’t so close to coming in his pants he might be embarrassed to be asked that, embarrassed even that he admitted to thinking about Shelton; but his dick is hardening up even more under his fingers, the pleasure curling his toes and zipping electric into his stomach, and he’s rambling before he can even register the command fully. 

“Mostly fucking you,” He mutters, and the rings on Shelton’s fingers wink buttery gold in the light as he tugs lazily at his dick, a half-smile on his face as he listens. “You fucking me too. It’s just —” He swallows, pushing his fingers past his dick, down to where he’s hot and wet and wanting. “Easier, I guess.” He curls his fingers inside of himself, and there’s not enough space in the tight front of his jeans but it’s enough, it scratches that itch to be filled up — Eugene lets his head drop back against the arm of the sofa, stretching a leg out to bump up against Shelton’s side to give himself more room to work his fingers inside. “I ain’t gonna last much longer.” He adds, and can see it in Shelton, too. His eyes are very dark in his face; intense beneath his wild curls, above his sensual, soft mouth. 

“Are you fucking yourself?” He murmurs, ignoring Eugene, who nods, eyes flitting away in semi-embarrassment before reconnecting with Shelton just in time to see him smear his free hand over his face, a moan just tugging his smile downward. “Jesus,” He breathes, hand dropping to press flat in the hair at the base of his dick as he begins to work himself faster, foot pressing hard against Eugene’s outer thigh, expression bowing together into something that could almost be pain if it wasn’t for the noises slipping out past his lips, if it wasn’t for the hazy, fucked-out way he’s looking at Eugene, who finds himself transfixed, dick throbbing away beneath his palm. He’s so wet around his fingers he barely registers them — wants something bigger, thicker; Shelton’s fingers, his dick, his tongue — 

Shelton makes a sound; a moan caught early in his throat, and Eugene’s breath catches on a desperate, helpless noise as he watches Shelton cum all over his stomach, arm thrown over his head and face turned into his bicep as he gasps into the skin there. It’s overwhelming to see him fall apart so completely; that near-obscene expression on his face, the way he’s still tugging on his dick, slow and languid like he can’t bear to not have the pleasure last as long as possible. As Eugene watches, he shivers and his hand stills, and a beat of silence passes in which the only noises are the rain outside, the chug of the heater, and Shelton’s ragged breaths. Then he blinks his eyes open and refocuses; hazy-eyed, heavy lidded. 

“Gene,” He mutters, and Eugene’s dick jumps at the sound of his voice; low and rough and fucked out, completely satisfied. It makes the need running through him feel even more urgent, makes Eugene even more aware that he hasn’t yet gotten off, that his orgasm is so close he can practically taste it. He pulls his fingers from himself, cheeks pinking as Shelton slowly rights himself, his curls a tangle from where he’d gripped his fingers into them as he’d came.

His shirt falls from it had been pushed up to his sternum; Shelton pays it no mind. His attention is so singleminded on Eugene that he feels like a spotlight has been turned on over him, feels like there’s something buried deep in his guts that keeps tug tugging away with every shift of Shelton across from him.

He’s speaking before he even knows what he wants to ask. “I need —” and he never finishes the sentence, because Shelton is settling a knee between his legs, and he smells like cigarettes and weed and Eugene’s goddamn detergent, and like sex and sweat and —

He kisses him. Eugene doesn’t know who makes the first move but it feels like it had happened so simultaneously that for a moment he feels on the same wavelength; the two of them operating on some unsaid agreement. Beyond thought, beyond words; Eugene’s free hand finds the nape of Shelton’s neck, finds the curls at the back of his head, and Shelton’s hand finds the front of his t-shirt at the exact same moment. He tastes like salt and spit and skin when they come together, his mouth open over Eugene’s immediately, and it feels so visceral, so dirty, that Eugene doesn’t feel a goddamn thing beyond arousal as he pulls his hand from his pants to grasp hold of Shelton’s wrist, his wet fingers wrapping around his hammering pulse as he urges his hand to the open fly of his pants. And to his credit, Shelton barely stumbles; his teeth catch at Eugene’s lower lip and he groans, and Eugene can hear every ounce of unconcealed arousal that he must be feeling in that sound alone. But he doesn’t have time to muse on it, his whole world is Shelton — his smell, his mouth, his touch, his lean little body straddling Eugene’s knee, and then he stuffs his hand down Eugene’s pants and Eugene forgets every second thought he might have ever had about this whole situation.

“Can I —” Shelton begins, his fingers skating uncertainly over the hard little length of Eugene’s dick, then pressing rough against his hole as Eugene groans, and he breathes, “Fuck, you’re wet.”

“If you don’t get me off I’m gonna die.” Eugene mutters, fast, his jaw clenched, his fingers like a vice around Shelton’s wrist. The fact that Shelton’s hand is down his pants, that his fingers are just one tiny movement from being _inside him_ is insane — it’s overwhelming, it’s so hot that Eugene is sure he’d cum at this point from nothing. If Shelton fucking breathed on him right, if he kissed him, if he, if he, if he —

Shelton gives him two fingers right away, and the feeling is like a punch to the stomach, arousal shocking him so bright and so hard that Eugene feels completely breathless from it as he grabs hard at Shelton with both hands, lifting his hips up into his touch in some silent plea for _more_. And Shelton can read him well, he’s always been able to but Eugene feels it tenfold now, with Shelton’s work-roughened fingers pressing hard and vital into him, curling up against that spot that truly sends the breath from his lungs, and it’s so teenage to get fingered to orgasm fully dressed on his sofa but Eugene is beyond thought, let alone caring, so he pulls at Shelton’s curls and comes hard and messy on his fingers as Shelton’s tongue curls against his own. 

Time feels very sticky, after all that. 

“I think the chilli is catching.” Shelton mumbles, eventually; his first words since he’d eased his fingers from Eugene’s underwear to flop boneless against his front. Eugene just hums, sleepy and sated, his high just mellowed enough by his orgasm that he feels like he could sink forever into the sofa, could sleep for weeks. Shelton’s face is pressed to his neck, his curls at Eugene’s nose, and he feels surrounded by him in the best possible way. The cumulation of years spent second guessing and wishing and yearning; Shelton smelling warm and musky against him, his hand wormed under Eugene’s side as he holds him close. 

Very slowly, Eugene draws his fingers through Shelton’s hair, and smiles to himself at the pleased noise it brings out of him. “You hungry?” He asks, scratching his nails at Shelton’s scalp just to hear him purr against his throat again. 

“Fucking starvin’.” He replies, though neither of them move to do anything about it for a while; sharing the silence, sharing the warm room and each other’s closeness. And then Shelton grunts, and shifts, and Eugene moves with him; ears turning hot as he feels how wet he is in his underwear as he sits up straight. As if he can tell, Shelton laughs, eyes turning fond as his hand finds the back of Eugene’s head, and he kisses him; as easy as breathing. Casual, even if the feeling which lights up in Eugene’s chest at the simple, affectionate gesture is everything but. “This took too fuckin’ long.” Shelton murmurs, when they part, and Eugene makes an indignant noise as he rises from the sofa to go rescue their dinner.

“Hey, it takes two.”

Shelton snorts, stretching his arms to the ceiling until his back cracks, and he groans. “Did I say it was your fault?” He asks, hands still raised above his head, the bottom of his flat, hairy stomach visible beyond his undersized t-shirt. He winks at Eugene’s expression. “What? Sometimes a guy likes to be _chased_.”

Eugene leans forward to halfheartedly smack him in retaliation; Shelton avoids it nimbly, a grin on his face that he can’t seem to wipe off as he crosses to the kitchen and starts messing with stuff. Comfortable, like it’s his own flat. Eugene likes to see it; is content with resting his cheek on the back of the sofa to watch Shelton ease the lid from the crockpot, jumping back from the rush of hot steam with a hiss and a curse. The affection blooming in his chest is reaching critical levels; he’s not sure what’s going to happen when it overflows, but he’s sure it involves Shelton, his bed; maybe even their clothes off this time. 

“Hey,” He calls, and Shelton hums, cocking his head in Eugene’s direction to let him know he’s listening as he stirs at the food. “Shelton, this isn’t a one off, right?” 

Shelton makes a considering noise. “Do you want it to be?” A beat of silence, in which Eugene’s stomach drops right through the floor, and then Shelton turns and catches Eugene’s expression, and cracks up. “I’m kidding!” He cries, and Eugene rises from the couch, crosses the room just so he can grip Shelton’s shoulders and shake him a little.

“I hate when you do that shit.” He groans, but he’s grinning too — Shelton’s laughter irritatingly contagious as always. “Fuck you.” He adds, when Shelton hooks a finger into the loops of his jeans and tugs him closer. 

“Don’t be so mad,” He murmurs, a smile playing around his mouth as he settles his hips up against Eugene’s; cocksure and disarmingly handsome. “I’ll suck your dick later to make it up to you.”

Eugene rolls his eyes, his smile tugging at his mouth even as he sways forward into Shelton’s chest, even as he presses a kiss to his jaw, his cheek, his mouth. Their foreheads touch, and Eugene closes his eyes, affection so thick in his throat he can taste it. “Okay, fine,” He says, finally, and takes a decisive step back even though one look at Shelton again has him wanting to press himself close and never let go, to make up for those four years of lost time in just one night. Lounging against the counter, his lips full and red kissed, curved into the most irritatingly attractive shit-eating smirk that Eugene has ever seen. He wants to smack him. He wants to kiss him. “You said somethin’ about dinner?” He says instead, and Shelton’s eyes crinkle as he ducks his head, smiling. 

“You got it.” He says, easily, and the night devolves into food, bad TV, more weed. Exactly how Eugene had anticipated the night going, but for a few glaring little differences. His head on Shelton’s chest, Shelton’s hands combing idly through his hair as he flicks through the channels, hearing and feeling his laugh through his chest when he settles on Seinfeld; an old favourite for both of them. The weed and the food and the sex and the long day are wearing on Eugene; he feels dreamy and hazy, over-warm and too languid to do anything about it but just lie there and soak in the comfort radiating from Shelton. _I’d do anything for him,_ he thinks, blindly, as Shelton’s thumb curves gently over his cheekbone. _Forever, for as long as he lets me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! lemme know what u thought :~)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i should have the second half up by this time next week, if not earlier :~)


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